


With Still Life

by merryghoul



Category: What Else Is There? - Röyksopp (Music Video)
Genre: Electricity, Gen, Inanimate Objects
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-05 01:56:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6684616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merryghoul/pseuds/merryghoul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A woman in a painting makes the rest of a gallery's paintings move in search of companionship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Still Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eos_3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eos_3/gifts).



The woman in the Elizabethan ruff looked out at the still life banquet she was sitting at. Various things were laid out on the table. There was a bluish cloth over the table and a purple cloth under the food. There were peaches and plums in a metal bucket. Two types of bread were on a metal plate. Honey was in a glass jar tied up with cheesecloth on top, reinforced with a piece of string. Butter was under a glass dish and oil was in a bottle. Two dead ducks, the feathers still on them, hung over everything. Delphinium flowers in a vase were also on the table. An apple was nearby her. All of it remained untouched by the woman in the Elizabethan ruff. After viewing the still life she was stationed at, the woman in the Elizabethan ruff concluded it was not enough for her. 

Earlier, a blonde girl with a puffy blue jacket touched the woman in the Elizabethan ruff in the painting, the girl's fingers charged with static electricity. The girl read the plaque under the painting of the woman in the Elizabethan ruff: _Margareta with Still Life._

A woman took the girl away from the painting. "Sofia," the woman said, "you're not supposed to touch that. You'll ruin the painting."

"Sorry, mamma," Sofia said softly.

Margareta, as the woman in the Elizabethan ruff began to call herself, did not think Sofia was a naughty girl touching an oil painting that was meant to be sold. Margareta believed she was touched by the god that made her who she was. And Margareta wanted to do good by her god. Now that she could see every painting in the gallery, she wanted to give the gift that made her come alive so the gallery could live just like she was living. 

Margareta needed something to make the gallery come alive, but she didn't know what. Her black eyes eventually landed on the closest thing near her—a painting of an apple. If Margareta could make the apple move, she could make the gallery move all at once.

Margareta concentrated on the apple. It took moments, but the apple started growing a hair-like substance from it, shining and throbbing with the power Sofia gave to her. Margareta's power spread throughout the gallery. And the gallery started moving.

 

The woman in the blanket knew she shouldn't be aware of her surroundings, and yet she was. She noticed the person who painted her wrapped her floating in a blanket near a brick wall. The woman she should not know all these things, and yet she did.

The woman in the blanket looked out at the gallery. Most of the paintings in the gallery were moving. The only paintings that weren't moving were still life paintings of empty building interiors—there was nothing in them that could move.

Across the gallery the woman in the blanket saw who was the culprit for all the paintings in the gallery starting to move. Another woman, dressed in a Elizabethan ruff, stared at the woman with black eyes. She could not move her mouth, but she could transmit her thoughts to all the paintings. _I am Margareta. Come to me, for I have given you the gift of motion._

The woman in the blanket was going to come to Margareta, but not because Margareta was asking her to go. The woman in the blanket had a feeling everything Margareta was doing was wrong.

Before leaving the gallery, the woman in the blanket decided to choose a name for herself. She wanted to not be confused when she confronted Margareta. The woman in the blanket looked at the gallery's floor and saw a name tag sticker stuck to the floor with the name "Anette." The woman in the blanket liked the name and took it as her own. Anette didn't have time to consider any other names. 

Anette shrugged off her blanket and floated out of her painting. 

 

Anette's painting was calm. It was her, the brick wall, the road she hovered above, and the blanket. When she left her blanket, she was entering a storm as animated by Margareta's power. And since the same artist painted various views of this magical storm, let alone all the paintings in this part of the gallery, Anette knew she was in for an arduous journey. Not everything directly threatened Anette. She passed by a house floating towards the sea without any problem. She floated in front of its canvas, allowing her to duck the floating house.

Floating towards a painting called _Outside the Factory_ was a different matter. The painting from a viewer's perspective was a surreal landscape portrait of feathers passing by a building, illuminated by a street light. A man walking towards the factory was somewhere in the background. Anette traveled from the back of the painting. She followed its streets to the front of the painting. A furious stream of feathers and a strong wind greeted Anette. They threatened to push her out of _Outside the Factory._ But Anette pressed on, making it to the inside of the factory. It was the way to the next painting and also a way to escape the storm in _Outside the Factory._

The way into _Floating House in the Country_ was to literally get inside the floating house, filled with unseen pieces of wood, pieces of fabric, and wooden chairs. Anette left the house and, for a moment, was lost. To find her way, she went under the house, letting the debris from the house fall into her hair. It was then that she noticed the paint she was made of was dripping down her legs. When the paint dripping down her leg stopped, she continued.

Anette floated past another house that was being tangled by the wires of an electricity pole, its wires functioning more like tentacles than wires. She floated over a grassy field painted as if it was lit by a harsh light overhead. But the paint returned to drip down her leg again. 

 

Moments later, Anette ended up in another painting with a German Shepherd in the middle of a road. The dog looked at her, only turning its head as she passed by it. Anette raised her left foot to avoid the dog as she passed by its nuzzle. The German Shepard continued to look up at the sky after Anette passed it.

The painting of the German Shepherd lead to another painting, one of a foggy forest called _Smoky Tree._ At first Anette didn't know where she needed to go to find Margareta. There wasn't a clear path Anette could see through the trees. Then Anette found the smoky tree of the painting's title. Two craters in a tree were emitting smoke. Anette floated towards the smoke and out of the forest, her hands grazing the moss-covered trees. A light was over Anette's head; Anette concluded that she was walking into another picture, one similar to the harshly-lit grassy field painting earlier.

To get to Margareta, Anette floated into a landscape with streetlights and a floating house with a smaller house on the site. The house seemed as it was blowing away, thanks to Margareta. 

This house was similar to the house from _Floating House in the Country._ Fabric was draped across chairs. Various items made out of wood were everywhere. Anette floated towards a door that was cracked, where a version of Margareta's still life only Anette could see was beside the door. 

Then there was darkness as Annette passed through paintings. The darkness that lead to Margareta felt uncomfortable to Anette. There were flashes of light in the darkness, and the darkness itself felt like locusts were swarming around Anette. Anette felt goosebumps, and yet she shouldn't have felt goosebumps. 

 

Margareta sat at the far end of the table with the still life banquet on it, eating an apple. Behind Margareta was a window. Flashes of lightning could be seen outside of it. A silver vase with flowers in it was behind her. 

Anette knew she was out of the darkness when she saw white calla lilies at the entrance of the painting. 

Anette sat down in the chair across from Margareta. Margareta put down her apple and stared at Anette.

"Hello, Margareta," Anette said. "I am Anette."

_You were the only one who came at my call._

"I might be the only one who could've possibly heard your call."

_Hello, Anette._

"Why am I here?" 

_I have made the painting of that apple the heart of this gallery. It keeps everything in motion._

Margareta transmitted the story about how Sofia's static electricity gave her life to Anette.

 _Everything else in the gallery was still,_ Margareta continued. _I was lonely. I wanted company. So I focused on the apple, in the hopes that I could make it do something. I made hairs grow from it. And I knew that if I could do something to that apple, I could move everything in this gallery. So I made the houses move. I made the dog turn its head. I made you float, and in turn, you found me. I like you. And I want you to stay with me. I want you all to stay with me. That is why I have made you all move. It is lonely here, sitting by this table of food, having no desire to eat any of it except my apple._

"You can't do this."

_And why not?_

"Everything in this gallery is still. We're not supposed to move. I should know. I dripped paint down my legs coming to you. I shouldn't be dripping paint at all. You're ruing the work of people who created us to entertain others." 

_I want us all to move._

"You can't keep us in motion. It's amazing that you can make houses float. You can make dogs move and you can animate a dog in a painting. But you'll destroy all of us."

 _You deny my gift. Why are you not grateful?_

"We shouldn't be moving, Margareta." 

_This is your final warning. Do you want the gift of movement, or do you want me to show you how I can move you?_

Margareta transmitted an image of Anette floating in the darkness, being thrashed around by unknown forces, passing the German Shepard she had already passed to get to the still life. Anette saw the thrashing, but she was still in Margareta's painting.

"I'm not leaving like that, Margareta."

Margareta stared at Anette.

"I can't stay with you, Margareta. I'm going back to my painting. I can give you one thing, if it will make you happy. But please stop moving the art in the gallery. Our paintings were not meant to be moved. They are already ruined as they are." 

Anette refused to leave. She was right; no one could undo all the damage Margareta had done to all the paintings. Houses were going to float in different positions. A house was going to stay ensnared on the tentacles created by the utility pole. The apple would still appear to outsiders as looking like it was growing hair. But whatever was causing the woman in the Elizabethan ruff pain, she could ease it. 

Anette floated over to Margareta. She put her hands on Margareta's head. Anette let her feet touch the ground. Margareta closed her eyes.

_I will stop the paintings. For you._

  


When Margareta calmed down, she used her power to get Anette close to her own painting as much as she could. Anette went back past everything she experienced at a slower pace earlier. Everything was a blur—the blinding lights in the forests and the fields, the grass, the feathers blowing in the wind. 

Moments later, Anette was back in her own painting. She wrapped herself back into her blanket. The consciousness she once had faded from her.

When Anette lost consciousness, the rest of the gallery stopped moving—the houses, the power lines, the dog, the man, the apple that now appeared as if it was growing hair.

True to her word, Margareta stopped moving in her painting and lost consciousness. She tried to remember Sofia, the girl who gave her life. But Sofia, like everyone else that ever visited _Margareta with Still Life,_ faded from Margareta's memory. Sofia became another face, one of many, one that would not know of the one time Margareta made the gallery come to life.


End file.
